The World Cup finals that kicked off in June this year are what Internet users in Singapore looked for the most in 2018, according to a list of top trending searches released by Google yesterday.
The football fiesta was followed by a weightier topic – the watershed Malaysian elections – and another sporting event in the shape of the Australian Open tennis grand slam, in terms of the top things people searched online for.
Former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak, the late comic book creator Stan Lee and the dramatic Thai cave rescue were also on the minds of online search users, Google revealed yesterday.
Perhaps unsurprising as well are local news items that Singapore users seemed to seek on the Internet. The top trending topics here were the Trump-Kim summit, the movie Crazy Rich Asians and the GST voucher.
When it came to technology, Apple’s iPhone XS came up tops, followed by Samsung’s Galaxy Note 9, the iPhone XR, Huawei Mate 20 Pro and Huawei Nova 3i. Again, no surprises there.
Perhaps what’s more interesting are travel itineraries that piqued the interest of people here. While Taiwan, Osaka, Hokkaido and Korea are expected, users also Googled for Khao Yai.
No worries, we Googled too. Khao Yai, in central Thailand, is a site with great natural parks and famed waterfalls. Clearly, a nice departure from the concrete jungle that’s Singapore.
